Alter-Circuit: Virlani Hallberg features the single-channel video Receding Triangular Square (RTS) (2012), a collaboration between the artist and the psychoanalyst and cultural theorist Leon Tan. RTS explores philosophies and practices of healing in Taiwan that are alternative to the dominant Euro-American psychiatric and psychotherapeutic paradigms. Through a juxtaposition of Daoist rituals, traditional healing methods, and Western-style psychiatry, RTS looks into the history of colonization and modernization in Taiwan and questions the universality and rationality of scientific truth. Forms of displacement and alienation are experienced not only as mental despair and illness, but also on a historical scale through the long-lasting destruction of culture in the modern world.

Alter-Circuit: Virlani Hallberg inaugurates a long-term collaboration between ACAC and Et. al. Focusing on diasporic practices, particularly those coming into conflict and contact with Asia, Alter-Circuit works closely with an individual artist over a period of time. Through durational endeavors, Alter-Circuit draws paths into and out of the artist’s practice while other collaborators, including curators, writers, publishers, scholars, and art communities, are invited to participate in the conversations.

Alter-Circuit: Virlani Hallberg will continue with the artist’s presence in San Francisco later this year for a series of public programs. During that time, it will have a life online as a blog to expand the topics and widen both the audience and the circle of participants.

Alter-Circuit is conceived and curated by Xiaoyu Weng, Aaron Harbour, and Jackie Im.

Jackie Im is an independent curator, writer and artist living and working in Oakland, CA. She has curated exhibitions at the Wattis Institute of Contemporary Art, San Francisco, CA; the Mills College Art Museum, Oakland, CA; Liminal Space, Oakland, CA; S.H.E.D. Projects, Oakland, CA; Pro Arts, Oakland, CA; MacArthur B Arthur, Oakland, CA; and Queens Nails, San Francisco, CA. She has assisted on exhibitions at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA; Queens Nails Projects, San Francisco, CA; Intersection for the Arts, San Francisco, CA; and the Walter and McBean Galleries at San Francisco Art Institute. She received her BA in Art History from Mills College and her MA in Curatorial Practice from California College of the Arts. She is currently the editor of Art Cards San Francisco and co-director and curator of Et al., a gallery in San Francisco.